Hailsham Cemetery

The site of Hailsham has been inhabited since at least the Neolithic age. It was an Ancient British settlement that existed before the Romans invaded Kent and Sussex in 43 AD. The Anglo Saxons invaded Sussex in the year 477 AD. The Saxons are thought to have invaded at an original landing place at Selsey. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in 491 AD they attacked and took the British stronghold of Anderida which was the fort that is believed to have been built by the Ancient British and the Romans at what is now Pevensey, just a few miles from Hailsham, thereby consolidating their conquest and forming the small kingdom of the South Saxons, or Sussex. In Roman and Saxon times, the…

Many parts of Hailsham have been lost to redevelopment prior to preservation orders being introduced. The town retains a number of buildings which display evidence of antiquity. The houses are mainly Victorian in character with more modern residential developments around the original town centre.

The civic parish of Hailsham is approximately 3 mi in breadth and 4 mi from north to south between its extreme points. Its boundary (going in a clockwise direction) runs from its most northerly limit, near Carter's Corner Place, in a southerly direction around Magham Down, over the Herstmonceux road and crosses the low-lying farmlands, passing close to New Bridge and on across Horse Eye Level to Rickney. It then turns westwards taking an irregular course over the Glynleigh Level, across the Cuckoo Trail (former railway line) to the main Eastbourne road (A22), continuing northwards along this for about three-quarters of a mile until it goes west and north again to take in some of the…